Love them to roll out a 5 TE set with Aaron as the RB. Try it for at least one snap.

I doubt they'll have all 5 active. What seems most likely is that Hernandez needs another week or two to get back and Shiancoe will take his spot on the 46 man active game day roster. Once Hernandez is healthy, Hoomanawanui will be cut.

I liked that idea, Hernandez got around 80 yards against the Broncos on the ground IIRC (could be waaay off)

He had 61 yards on 5 carries, but 43 came on 1 play

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Works in theory, don't know what reasons people could give for it not to be viable.

Well, if you're in the hurry up offense, you lose a lot of versatility when you have Fells, Shiancoe and Hoomanawanui all on the field at once. All 3 of those guys (plus Hernandez) are below average blockers at best. So let's think about formations you can line up with this personnel grouping:

3 WR's/2 TE's (probably Gronkowski, Hernandez and Shiancoe off the line). If you're going to split more than 1 guy off the line, you'd be better off with WR's. Given that this is a pass-only formation (excluding a jet sweep or end around type play), it's effectiveness is less than if you had real WR's and not TE's

2 WR's/2 TE's/1 RB (Hernandez in the backfield) - None of the non-Hernandez players are dangerous out-wide threats. Especially if you are keeping Gronkowski on the line to block. And if you're putting Gronkowski out wide, you are using poor blockers in-line. That makes this a fairly useless formation.

1 WR/3 TE's/1 RB (Hernandez in the backfield, Shiancoe out wide). This formation only really makes sense to try to catch the opponent off guard by motioning Hernandez out of the backfield. As a gimmick formation on 2nd and short or something like that, it could work. But any time Hernandez is in the backfield as the only "RB", it's a win of sorts for the opponent. Given his fumbling issues and his durability concerns, using him as a RB isn't going to be a great idea long-term.

Here's the thing, the allure of this formation is to try to overload the defense's personnel grouping. Either they get caught with too many DB's (allowing a run with Hernandez) or too many LB's (allowing the Pats receivers to run free). The problem is that the running advantages are somewhat mitigated by the lack of decent blocking TE's and Hernandez's issues which make him (IMO) a sub-par running option. The receiving advantages are also overblown as the defense really only has to account for Hernandez and Gronkowski.

What's harder for a defense to plan for? A package with a quality running threat in the back field (Ridley) and 4 quality receiving threats (Hernandez, Gronkowski, Welker, Lloyd) or

Any way you slice it, you are taking better players off the field in favor of worse talent. That is doing the defense a favor. In any formation, the defense has to account for Hernandez and Gronkowski. IMO trying to account for Ridley/Lloyd/Welker is far tougher than Shiancoe/Fells/Hoomawanui.

In theory, this type of "TE Overload" personnel grouping could be deadly - if the Pats had more than 2 good TE's. The problem is that Hoomanawanui is terrible, Shiancoe (who looked to be in decline last year) is a poor blocker and Fells is average or worse at both blocking and receiving.